The Eyes have It by Sharon O’Donnell
Well, after two weeks of snow and its consequences in central North Carolina (school closings due to icy roads), my husband and I were able to escape to Miami for four days. It was indeed beautiful, but unfortunately, we spent way too much of our time at the University of Miami Eye Hospital (Bascom Palmer) because my husband had problems with his retina. All is okay now, but I don’t think that the eye hospital is on the top 10 tourist sites in Miami.
As we were driving back from having lunch in Key Largo (about an hour south of Miami), my husband noticed some floaters and a “squiggly line” in his right eye. This caused concern, particularly because 14 months ago his retina detached in his left eye, and he had to have a serious surgery that took some tough recuperation time; people who have a detachment in one eye are prone to having it happen in the other eye. Ironically, I had seen the hospital on our way out of Miami to Key Largo as it towered in the skyline, a huge banner on the top of it that read, “Number One Eye Hospital in the Nation”. “Wow,” I’d told my husband, Kevin. “At least that’s there if we should need it.” I meant it as a joke. But turns out it wasn’t.
We ended up in the ER of the hospital where they discovered a tear in my husband’s retina, which required laser surgery. His vision was somewhat blurry afterwards, which created some alarm, but he was doing better the next day. Even though it didn’t end up being quite the relaxing trip we’d wanted, the one day in the sun we did get was worth it: listening to the ocean, lying on the sand and by the pool in 85 degree weather. A needed respite from the snow. And it is a blessing we chose Miami because it had the best ranked eye hospital in the nation with a 24 hour ER. What are the odds? Someone was looking out for us.
